The present invention relates to wireless communication with medical devices such as implantable medical devices.
Medical devices, including implantable medical devices (IMDs) are now used to provide countless therapies and to monitor a wide variety of physiological events. With the increased uses of IMDs has also come the need for improved methods of communicating with and between IMDs.
Conventionally, communication with IMDs has been performed with magnetic field communication technology. Systems that employ this communication technology, however, are generally only capable of communicating over very short distances, on the order of a few inches. As a result, a magnetic head of a programmer (or other external device) must be located on or near the IMD for communication to occur. More recently, radio frequency (RF) communication systems have been developed for use with IMDs. RF communication provides a number of benefits over magnetic field communication systems, including much greater communication distances.
Because an IMD is surgically implanted within the body of a patient, battery life is one of the factors to be considered in the design of IMD communication systems. There is also an ongoing desire to enable more and more advanced communications between IMDs and other devices. Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods to provide advanced communication capabilities while limiting the amount of time that the transceiver of an IMD stays active to conserve battery life.